


In Plain Sight

by Path



Category: Exalted
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:28:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Path/pseuds/Path
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aquila is the only one to notice the girl spying on them. Does she understand what it's like to live in the shadows as he does?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I’m early to our meeting, and it’s a good thing, too.

Thorim shows up exactly on time, and Sanguine bustles in late. I’m the one who’s early- I scout the place first. I found the building a few weeks ago, and have been watching it consistently. Seems safe enough; as safe as we’ll get in this backwater town, anyhow. No real locks, no real protection, but it’s away from the main areas, and the windows are boarded over. Good enough.

Well, was good enough. Proves not to be.

So Thorim is on time, and we exchange a few words- brief. Awkward. He doesn’t know what to think of me. Fair enough; I haven’t made up my mind on him yet either, though he’s the best of these so-called “Lawgivers” I’ve found yet. Deadfeathers agrees. So we talk, a little, and then lapse into silence again. I’m happy enough with it. Like silence. Thorim’s twitchy. Writing hand moves compulsively like rolling a stylus between the fingers. Probably feels uncomfortable away from his smooth desk and plush chair. And with me.

Deadfeathers shows up a few minutes later, and starts in immediately on Thorim. It’s pretty funny, actually, seeing him berating the guy. Can’t see any of the other Solars I’ve met sitting back and letting Sanguine talk to them like that, either, so I guess Thorim’s alright sometimes. They get settled into a routine debate, Deadfeathers hounding and questioning and doubting, and Thorim listening and defending. They do this a lot.

I’m drifting a little. I’d like to say I can keep attentive, focused on every word of my “mentor”, but there’s only so many times they can do this before I start to wish for something to _do_. That’s when the door slides open.

My eyes narrow as a figure is silhouetted against the snow outside for an instant. Something slight and small edges through the crack of the door, and almost disappears entirely, the shadows curling around it. The door closes silently. Thorim and Deadfeathers don’t even look up; it’s a surprise they’re alive at all given how blind they are.

I can see the thing moving when I tilt my head, but otherwise, it’s almost impossible to see. The others don’t notice when I take to the shadows cloaking the safehouse. Not so safe after all, I think to myself. I’m creeping around by the wall, gaining on the slight figure. It pauses to listen as Thorim elaborates a bit on some high and mighty plan, and in that instant, I catch up and seize it by the wrist.

It jumps, still silent, and turns, giving an odd shudder. It’s a girl.

She’s tiny and slim, and has a lot of silky-looking black hair in a ponytail down her back. Skin’s tanned- don’t know where she’d get a real deep tan like that up here in the icelands. That kind of colour wasn’t even seen in Lookshy, my home- though now that I think of it, it’s not too far off the Chiaroscurans we sometimes saw. Her eyes are dark, and her expression surprises me, a sort of unholy delight showing in the shadowy eyes.

She pulls at her wrist, trying to get away. I feel like I could crack her little bones with one hand, she’s so slim, and she doesn’t go anywhere. She wriggles, tossing her hair back, and pulls herself close to me. It’s not too hard to keep her away, but I have to keep changing my grip- she’s hard to hold on to. Finally, I get both wrists in one hand and her ponytail in the other, and aside from the occasional wiggle, testing me, she’s still. I’m about to pull her into the room for the others to deal with (maybe it’d make their conversation a little more memorable) when she turns the dark eyes on me and cranes her head up, stretching closer to me.

“So that’s where you disappeared to,” she murmurs in my ear, low and soft. Voice is like silk, like the silence itself, barely audible. “I saw you when I came in, and then,” she laughs a little on the edge of sound, “gone!”

I frown at her and hold tight as she tries to break free again. “Who are you?” I mutter to her.

She laughs again. “Oh, no. I snuck up on your friends, and then you snuck up on me. Now it’s my turn to sneak up on you again...”

I give the hair a bit of a tug. It’s even silkier than it looks, almost finer than I can imagine. She writhes- not in pain. Probably frustration. “Don’t think you’re in any position to argue. Your name. Or I can bring my friends in on this.”

She tries to break for it again, kicking me just under the kneecap and bringing her heel down on the top of my foot. I’ve had a lot worse- feels more like a child’s flailing than any real attack. I wonder why she’s so determined, though, clearly overpowered and outnumbered- she should cut her losses. I use a quick close-combat maneuver my officers back in Lookshy taught me- grab the ponytail at the scalp, hand around her wrists, pull her back against me and turn to the wall. Her face is against the stone before she realizes I’ve got her. She makes no noise, which shouldn’t surprise me, but she looks like she wants to scream for a moment. Then her expression rearranges into a sort of pout, and she turns those dark eyes on me again, head laying against my shoulder.

“Bring your friends in?” She writhes against me. “Would have thought you’d want me alone for a little while...”

I’m not a weak man. I don’t cave at the first sign of temptation. I withstand it and endure it and eventually ignore it, and temptation eventually goes away. I’m a patient man.

So I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s just that it’s been almost longer than I can remember since I’ve been with a woman, or even have one express interest. Hard to, when I spend most of my life practically invisible. There’s a lot more important than women, and I was never very social even as a mortal.

It’s been long enough since I was attracted to anyone myself. I’ll admit, there was one in recent memory- the angelic blonde woman, the Solar who led us in prayers and gave us advice, back in the Cult. Amaya- lovely. But I barely got to know her, and she was sort of... well, she was one of the Solars. There would have been problems. Before her... I can’t remember the last. I suppose it’s been five or six years since I’ve had the opportunity.

I still don’t know how to explain myself. I thought I had a better hold on myself. But the girl inclined her hips against mine, and suddenly I felt the full impact of it, the intense eyes, the slim build, the skin incredibly soft, and the hair- mostly the hair, perfect and dark and.... perfect. I’m hard almost immediately and cursing it.

She lets out a soft moan and pushes back into me. It’s overwhelming, the sudden arousal surging through me, waking parts of me I’d thought I’d shut off years ago. It’s all I can do to try to push her away, to tighten my grip and stop her from assaulting my mind so. When I look down, she’s pouting again, soft lower lip protruding. There is a hint of a malicious smile there.

“If you are going to keep me prisoner,” she breathes to me, “I at least want to enjoy myself. If you wish to spread the experience, if you want to get only a part of me, if you want _them_ to take what you could have... by all means, bring your friends in on this.”

I shudder, a jolt of unfamiliar jealousy, foreign anger coursing through me. I _don’t_ want them to have a part of her. She looks up, and I follow the motion instinctively- before us, Deadfeathers and Thorim are still talking. The girl sighs silently, and looks up at me with false wonder. “Do they know you’re gone?” she asks innocently.

I tighten my grip on her and pull her against me involuntarily. Foolish of me- her proximity, the warmth of her skin- I close my eyes for a second to the sensation she invokes. It takes me too long to struggle out of it, and I can feel her struggling too, pulling her hands, clasped in one of mine, towards her. I open my eyes just in time to see her crane her head forward, extending her tongue, licking up my wrist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aquila sticks to the shadows with his shadow-girl.

My whole body convulses. For all it’s been a long time, I don’t remember the sensation being this overwhelming before. She bites lightly at my wrist, then starts alternating- a long stroke of the tongue, a nip with the teeth, then several light licks travelling up to the edge of my palm. I am hypnotized, feel myself granting her a little more motion each second. When my hand loosens enough for her to pull her wrists free, it’s only to grab my hand, slipping two of my fingers into her mouth.

“Gods-” I mutter, and she laughs as she sucks on my fingers.

“Don’t bring them into this too,” she whispers, pausing for a second just to fall upon my hand again. She’s turning to face me, pushing me back into the wall. I’m caving fast, and I know I’ll regret it, but I just can’t repress it all...

She leans up against me, slim body against my own. Her breasts press into my ribs as she cradles my hand- sucking, licking, caressing the palm, twirling her tongue around my rough fingertips. I have a hard time keeping silent, and my breathing, laid over Thorim and Deadfeather’s continued conversation, still seems rough to my ears.

She giggles again- it seems to bubble out of her. She clasps a hand to my neck, pulling my head down to hers, and laughs into my ear. “Be careful, or your friends will hear you...” Then she’s parting my cloak, placing a slim hand over my hardness and inclining her head up- implied permission, like I have to be allowed to kiss her. I am trying my best not to moan. I’ve never felt silence to be so difficult before.

She’s biting my lip even as she’s loosening my belt. She drops to the floor with my pants, and now my mind ceases to function. Her tongue, her mouth, hot against me in this town where I’m never warm, her breath and lips take me over and dominate me. I simply struggle not to cry out.

I am close, so close, hard as steel and craving her, and she is stripping clothes off as she’s sucking on me, letting layers fall to the floor. I am almost there when she stands at last. I am drawn to her, I cannot let go of her, but she pulls back long enough to position herself, sitting up on one of the empty, half-broken crates in the room. I can’t stay away for more time than that. I’ve one hand on my own cock and the other placing thin fingers to her slit. She’s already wet- getting off on the thrill of hiding in plain sight as much as I am, perhaps. I cannot believe how dense my companions are.

I slide fingers over her, twisting against her and flicking in the half-remembered motions she makes me recall. I can’t wait any longer, press myself up against her, pushing in the slick, tight entry. I am shaking.

It has been so long.

I fence her in with my arms and body, clinging as I do to what solid surfaces I can find. She writhes below me, slim and sinuous, stunning. I force my shuddering breaths to silence, wrenching on what will I have remaining to pull the sound into my core. It never manifests. The few seconds I look away from her are surreal. In the room beyond are my associates, still bantering lightly on business and debating little plans and ideas, unaware both that I remain in the room, and of the small woman before me, wet and dark, back arched in animal pleasure and eyes wildly glazed.

It is that last look that finishes me. She has her arms wrapped around my neck, and is whispering half-heard words into my ear, biting and licking at it and my jaw and neck. “-have no idea... imagine what th... want me too, don’t... think? Don’t you?” I am simply pounding into her, ravaging her. She clenches around me, and her words wrap their way around my mind, and then I’m spilling into her, gritting my teeth with everything I have and throwing my head back as the tension of years is released. How I refrain from crying out... I do not know.

I am clutching her against me. The sweat beaded on me is cooling, as is her skin, and my mind finally drifts back into reason. She makes some comfortable, comforting sound, and I shake my head and extract myself, drying off and pulling my clothes back together.

“See?” she murmurs, clinging to my shoulder for a brief second, “Wasn’t that much more enjoyable, just the two of us?” I almost laugh, and turn to try to find my belt.

I should not have taken my eyes from her. I look up to the sound of the door closing- she has vanished. A quick look over my shoulder shows Thorim to be oblivious, though Deadfeathers peers into the darkness by the door for a moment, saying, “Aquila?”

I sling my cloak over my shoulder and respond. “Here.”

I feel mussed, disordered, confused. How they don’t recognize this is beyond me. But Sanguine just nods, says, “Oh, you are still here, I’d wondered where you’d gotten to.” It feels surreal.

I am still shaking, it feels. Thorim tosses me a bit of a frown, but is too polite to say anything further about my tousled state. I shrug. He seems to consider, and then discards the thought, following Deadfeathers out the door. We are all heading back to Thorim’s place when a thought strikes me, and I toss a glance back over my shoulder.

There’s a different set of footprints in the snow.

I look to my companions. They are still heading down the road, unaware I’m not even with them. When I look back at the prints, they seem to have faded- just a little, but enough to let me know my time is limited.

I begin walking.

= = =

Sanguine Deadfeathers finishes his point and laughs in triumph. He’s always pleased at the chance to beat one of the Solar Exalted. “Isn’t that right, Aquila?” he grins. Then he frowns. “Aquila?”

His companion shrugs. “He was here a moment ago.”

Deadfeathers considers this. Then he nods. “Oh, he’ll probably meet us there.” The two companions continue onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aquila and Apsara are both Bystanderman's. It is sad to note that every character mentioned in this fic is now dead.
> 
> Bluhhhh.

**Author's Note:**

> Crysaetos Aquila (No Moon Lunar golden hawk) and Apsara (Fiend) are both Bystanderman's characters.


End file.
